Linkou Zhulinshan Guanyin Temple
Main Deities
About
The temple's name is assembled from three places — Luzhu, Linkou, and Guishan, one character each. The naming is honest about what this is: not one village's temple, but a center of faith raised by three communities together. It enshrines the eighteen-armed Guanyin, and the halls completed in the 2012 rebuild used thirty-eight thousand-year-old Taiwanese cypress timbers; what you notice first on entering is the smell of wood, not incense. Outside lies a garden of several hectares, cherry blossoms in spring, and on a weekday morning close to nothing but the sound of someone sweeping — one of the few places near Taipei that manages to be both large and quiet.
History
In 1801, worshippers brought three Guanyin images from the Longshan Temple of Anhai, Jinjiang, in Fujian. At first there was no temple; households across the villages took turns hosting the images. The real test came late in the Japanese colonial period, when the assimilation campaign suppressed Taiwanese folk religion and sought to burn its statues — believers hid the Guanyin and kept worship going in secret. The colonial government eventually permitted a temple in Japanese style, completed at the present site in 1939, and the name was made from one character each of Luzhu, Linkou, and Guishan to record who had protected it together. After study trips abroad, the temple completed its current rebuild in 2012.
Visitor Info
Address
No. 325, Zhulin Rd, Linkou District, New Taipei City
Region
Linkou District, New Taipei City